


dreamkeeper

by booooin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, BDSM, Canon - Manga, Canon - TV, Canon Related, Consensual Kink, M/M, Occult, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:20:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booooin/pseuds/booooin
Summary: Kazuki Takahashi says that Yugioh is about questioning authentic selfhood. The character that fulfills this purpose the most is, of course, Ryou Bakura.Character dynamics: spooky/witchy/calculating/cold!Ryou, aggressive/impulsive/angry!BakuraFollows on a combination of the manga and sub canons with these two working as a team.Completed!





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I first got into Yugioh in 2005 - it was my first fandom and forgot about it until now. Eleven years and I'm still tendershipping trash...
> 
> This is my interpretation of Ryou's character. To me, the beauty of this character is that he shows up in almost every season but, even at the end of the series, you can't tell which side he is on. Whether Bakura is really a good actor and what Ryou's personality is actually like continues to be a mystery. The only thing we know about Ryou is that he's obsessed with the occult.
> 
> I wanted to play with what Ryou and Bakura's dynamic would be like and came up with this story.

Bakura Ryou was the sort of kid everyone seemed to stay away from, frame wiry and hair big, bushy, and strangely white. His classmates thought it was creepy the way he did all his projects for history class on ancient religions and science projects on occult phenomenon. There were rumors that if you talked about Ryou behind his back, something would watch you sleep that night and take your eyeballs out if you woke up, that he was really a ghoul from the underworld masquerading as a kid, and that he had demon friends who he would send after anyone who looked at him twice.

Everyone made excuses to avoid working with Ryou when paired up with him for group work so when a boy named Toshi ended up with him in science, Ryou wasn't exactly surprised to see Toshi carefully avoiding his eyes with a hand held high.

“ S-so, what do you say we do for the assignment?” Toshi asked when all attempts to negotiate with the teacher for another partner failed him.

Ryou thought for a moment. It was a second grade biology unit and they were meant to investigate different parts of the human body. “Do you know about homunculus?”

Shivering, Toshi grasped his pencil tightly and whispered, “No.”

To be frank, Ryou thought this representation of fear was rather exaggerated. He hadn't even explained what homunculus were and they weren't at all creepy compared to some of Ryou's other interests. Toshi was probably reacting more out of rumors about Ryou than anything else. 

“Homunculus were artificial humans created by alchemists in the 16th century,” said Ryou despite everything. “They were miniature and showed that just how deeply the alchemists at the time understood the human nervous system...but because they were so grotesque, everyone called them little monsters.”

Toshi looked once at him in a way Ryou could not comprehend and, saying nothing more, began to cry.

 

* * *

 

Another reason no one talked to Ryou was because he went to a school and grew up in a neighborhood of upper middle class families who had stubborn values and judgmental eyes. It was the sort of neighborhood where one could not have an unfamiliar car that wasn't an imported model out on the driveway too long without the neighbors asking at least one question or even two.

Ryou was only seven, his father was absent, and his mother and sister were dead. The neighbors only allowed themselves to gossip about him with tones of pity and pity didn't invite too many people over to the home of a strange, little boy who was far too often alone and far too interested in the occult.

“It's the father,” Ryou overheard at the grocery store. “How that man leaves a seven year old child alone in a house like that is beyond me. If you lose your wife, at least remarry or find a nurse, am I right?”

“It's pitiful, pitiful,” another voice would join in. “My Daisuke tells me that the poor child does nothing all day but listen to ghost stories. Maybe he hopes he can bring his mother back as a ghost?”

In actuality, Ryou did much more than listen to ghost stories all day. Though he was only seven, he'd learned to be self sufficient at a young age and spent most of his time doing errands, cooking, cleaning, school, and homework.

The two housewives squirmed with embarrassment when he moved purposefully past them to pay for his daikon, onion, eggs, and natto.

 

* * *

 

The spirit inside the Sennen Ring supposed for the millionth time that all he'd ever had in life had been himself. That seemed to be his destiny. It was ironic, then, that he'd forgotten his own name and most of what had made up his self identity.

The important things, he remembered: the smell of his mother's charred flesh, the terror of being chased among dead bodies, the helplessness of being banished into the Ring, and, of course, the feeling of being half crazed with anger forever and ever. He would never forget anger like that.

There were other things – twisting a knife in someone's stomach or jabbing one with all the force he could muster through a throat. Unthinking violence – these were the images his anger had its moments of relish. These things he savored over in his stint in hell.

A solitary warrior campaigning for a cause that's slipped through everyone else's fingers, the spirit was never given the chance for righteous indignation. Everything he did was wrong, wrong, wrong and it was through that feeling of being so wrong that he came to love even himself before he was rightfully crushed by the forces of Ra.

 

* * *

 

After school, Ryou took in the mail and made a light dinner for himself. There were a couple bills and a small box from his father for his birthday which had passed over a month ago. Ryou didn't want to open it immediately, feels that it is somehow emotionally taxing to retrieve the scissors needed to lift up the tape to find out what it inside.

He ate his meal, did his homework, and quietly cleaned up after himself. By then, the sun had almost disappeared and, save for a pale, orange light on his kitchen counter, there was almost no light to the entire apartment.

Ryou didn't mind the dark and went to his room to snuggle into bed after the dishes were done. He was in the middle of a book on tarot cards when most kids his age were reading about Peter the Rabbit or some nonsense but no one had noticed just how smart he is because they were all too busy judging him for things he had no control over.

Only when it was 10:00 PM and he'd almost fallen asleep did Ryou remember that he's received a package from his father.

 

* * *

 

Over the several lifetimes the spirit spent inside the Ring, he would sometimes wonder if his memories were all an elaborate illusion and that he'd been born undying in his small room with nothing to see and so much to remember and nothing to anticipate.

Then the hate would hit him again. There was a pharaoh he had to kill. There were seven Sennen Items and a gate that must be opened. The spirit forced himself to remember these things in principle even if the reasons why he had to do them had become as distorted as his self identity.

The important things, he forced himself to obsess on: the smell of his mother's charred flesh, the terror of being chased among dead bodies, the helplessness of being banished into the Ring, and, of course, the feeling of being half crazed with anger forever and ever.

His soul room was a sad representation of his home in kul elna. However, there are no windows and no people and no warmth. All he felt in this room was the sinking feeling that he felt as a small boy that he will never see his mother again, the smell of her burnt flesh, and the knowledge that he had to get out.

When a door materialized in the room, the spirit stared for a good minute before grabbing the handle and wrenching it open.

This wasn't the first time someone had put on the ring. Most had been men whose soul rooms were decorated with tired tropes – fame, fortune, security. These tropes would only bring the spirit farther from his aims.

The first thing the spirit noticed was that there wasn't an obvious door to this potential host's room at all. All that was outside his own door was a large, heavy mirror. The spirit had no reflection because he had forgotten his face.

Bored after an eternity, the spirit stretched out the corners of his mouth with a grin. Finally, something interesting. The edges of the mirror were intact. There was nothing that suggested a latch or hinge. There was only a question, asking him to consider the self he'd sacrificed for a mission he'd only had himself to fulfill.

It couldn't be, could it?

If he was right, he would risk oblivion. If he was right, there would be no refusing this host. If he was right, this was the only true image of his own poor soul, as clean and untarnished as any newborn who had just died an old soul the night before. Something told the spirit he was right – the Ring took long enough to find his reincarnation.

With a last look at his soul room, the spirit closed it, turned around, and grabbed the handle of the same door in the mirror and opened it. 

Inside was a dim little room with a bed that was too small for any adult, a bookcase full that reached from the floor to the ceiling full of old volumes, and a strange music that didn't seem to come from any discernible spot.

All the spirit could tell that he wasn't alone, nothing else, including where the other presence came from and whether or not it was human.

 

* * *

 

Ryou had found an old necklace inside the box from his father. It was from the archeological dig that he was on in Egypt. Ryou wondered if it was alright for his father to send ancient relics to his son in Japan and fingered the spikes attached.

The metal felt warm to his touch.

He didn't know why but he put it on. The old object felt deeply magical and he went along with it. Ryou was usually much more careful in matters of mystery.

 

* * *

 

The spirit entered the other soul room by a step and the strange music became increasingly louder. He took another step and it became so loud he let go of the door handle to put his hands on his ears.

Shit! The spirit flung around but where there used to be a door remained only the large, heavy mirror. Inside was a little girl with white hair.

“Hello,” she said. “You're not my older brother.”

There was no time to dispute this before the small bed in the room began to shake back and forth violently and heavy footsteps from some invisible force began running across the ceiling, down the walls, and, with increasing vigor, at the spirit himself.

The spirit braced himself to take on whatever it was that was going to attack him – then it all stopped.

“If you're my brother, you'll know my birthday,” the little girl said from behind him inside the mirror. “You have three guesses. Guess correctly and I'll let you leave. Guess wrong, and no one here will like you very much anymore.”

What the fuck kind of soul room was this? It was either heavily guarded or full of deceptions. The spirit stared at the girl who stared back.

“Listen, I'm a spirit from the Sennen Ring who was sent to protect your brother, do you understand?” He tried. She stared on impassively. “I'm a very ancient spirit who is in an item your brother chose to put on. Why I'm here is no business of yours.” Still, this caused no reaction.

The spirit considered this. For now, he was stuck inside this room but, as long as he did not attempt the riddle, it seemed that nothing would happen to him.

He chose to look around the room a little, keeping an eye on the girl. Perhaps there would be family albums or something that helped him leave when he needed to. A closer look at the books on the shelves, however, proved them all to be on occult sciences, medieval rituals, and esoteric astrology. There was nothing useful to the riddle at hands though the spirit found plenty to be creepy.

In fact, he found the entire room to be creepy. What kind of person was this, with a haunted soul room? Whose room was this where entrance and exit were both conditional and potentially dangerous? And what was that loud, strange music that was driving him completely insane?

 

* * *

 

_Hello_ , Ryou heard inside his head. It wasn't language but pure sentiment. Something was attempting to make contact with him.

He was sitting on his kitchen stool, kicking one leg back and forth, one hand still exploring all the grooves on the ring. Ryou isn't sure how to make contact with whatever was inside the necklace and isn't completely sure he wanted to yet.

He answers anyway. _Hi_.

 

* * *

 

The spirit heard it. It was the voice of a little boy. Every host who's picked up the Ring in the past had been terrified out of their wits when he'd started speaking to them but the boy was calm. This really must be his own reincarnation speaking.

_Your sister wants to know her own birthday_.

He wanted to build up trust. The spirit knew that if he revealed too much too early the host would never put the Ring back on again. In the past, he wouldn't have cared and would have possessed the host entirely, using the body to do his bidding until it began to run down with no thought to the owner but, this time, he hoped there was potential for something longer lasting.

If he played his cards right, this could be the host who helps him kill the pharaoh and unlock the gate of the Sennen Items.

_She would never ask for her birthday,_ said the boy. It wasn't intentional. The boy was only musing over his question to himself but had no control over what he revealed or didn't yet.

_The kid said birthday_ , said the spirit.

There was a long silence. _Can you hear everything I think?_

The spirit considered this.

_Not yet_ , he said. It was the truth and he didn't know why he told it.

There was another long silence and the spirit realized that this was evidence the boy was already learning to guard his thoughts from him. It was an incredible feat and he couldn't decide whether to feel delighted his new host was so capable or a little nervous about what this could mean for him.

_It's her death date_ , the boy finally answered. _One day before my birthday. September 1st._

Hearing those words, the little girl smiled prettily, moved to the edge of the frame, and pushed to revolve the mirror around a seeming 180 degrees on her side (even though everything stays completely stationary on the spirit's side of things) until the spirit's soul room was in the mirror once more, slightly ajar and door creaking.

 


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bakura realizes a seven year old is smarter than him and Ryou likes his little secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! I do have this prewritten but keeping going over it obsessively to simplify, feeling like my writing style changes too much. I ended up condensing material and cutting down the number of chapters so that my updates can get longer.
> 
> I really want to read gemshipping fic? Could a kind stranger rec me something nice?

Ryou kept away from the necklace for a week and researched the existence of possessed objects, especially those of Egyptian magic. In the end, all he knew was that the necklace was 3000 years old, from a note in the box. Possessed objects, especially those by the use of black magic, were almost impossible to destroy. As Ryou contemplating all this his gym teacher, Niimura-san, tapped him on the head.

“Bakura! What did I just say?”

Ryou hated answering these questions. He knew there was no way of winning. “You said that we were going to play kickball today, a great way to get cardiovascular exercise.”

Niimura-san scowled deeper than ever. “For showing off, Bakura, you get five laps. Better start running now if you want a participation score for today.”

As Ryou took off, a few kids in his class laughed.

 

* * *

 

At home, Ryou sat in bed, fingering the necklace. None of the possessed items he'd read about in his research were very much alike. Instead, they tended to behave very differently according to what kind of deities were inside of them.

The last time he put the necklace on, the most extraordinary thing that happened was that Ryou heard a voice he had never heard before in his head. At seven years old, it was likely this was a product of his overactive imagination, Ryou thought.

The voice had asked him about Amane. Ryou knew that his sister had been long dead for more than a year now but couldn't help but wonder if...

What Ryou wasn't, however, was naïve enough to think that this spirit was his long lost sister.

 

* * *

 

The spirit could hear everything the boy was thinking as he played with the Ring. This was a very young boy and there was a sister. The little girl was this child's dead sister. There was sadness. No surprise there, as this was his own karma after all.

It was a welcome break from his own obsessions.

A small, unsure voice came inside his head. The boy had put on the Ring. _Are you there?_

The spirit had felt teased the other day. _Who?_

_Are you the one from last time? Who asked for my sister's death day?_

_If I am?_

The response came slow. _What do I call you?_

The spirit contemplated the many identities he could assume. _I'm only a part of you._

_If you were a part of me, you would know when my sister died._

Here was a child sharp as a freshly filed blade.

 _What do you want?_ , the boy asked.

The spirit was suddenly in no mood to play games. There was no time to, even though all he had was time.

_Get me out of the here._

The reaction was immediate. All communication was ceased. The boy had taken off the Ring and thrown in across the room.

 

* * *

 

The answers the spirit had given Ryou lingered inside his head for days. He'd claimed to be a part of Ryou himself, something Ryou didn't believe. Any of his other answers also could have been false.

The one about him being the same spirit who'd spoken to him on the first night – that one was true. The last one – Ryou wasn't so sure that was all the spirit was after.

He'd gone to the school the next day, as usual, and arrived at home to do his homework, as usual. Everything was as it should have been. He was always the responsible child, after all, whose only easy purpose was to cause his father no worry. Especially when Amane was alive, no special care had to be taken of him. Ryou's best asset was his invisibility.

The necklace was his little secret that he began to obsess over. Ryou began to put it on when he was home. There was something comforting about imagining himself not alone.

 

* * *

 

The boy put on the Ring everyday. The spirit could see him cook for himself, clean, and put himself to bed. He was young enough that there should have been some parental presence around but no one ever showed up. He liked to read and make dolls in his spotless bedroom. Sometimes he would stick the dolls to the wall, stick pins in them, and whisper incantations.

The spirit refrained from speaking to the boy unprovoked. The boy seemed to be the most comfortable with silence.

The simple, lonely life, secrets, and obsessions of a little boy relaxed the spirit. He'd found a substitute for reality, whatever that word meant. The things of the world were alien now and nothing looked like the housewares of his day.The spirit wondered if it was possible to fight an old battle in a new world.

_Are you there?_

It was the boy.

_I'm Bakura Ryou. That's my name. I don't think we formally met._

The spirit marveled at his method of speaking. The boy was either of wealthy stock, a different culture, or social customs had changed completely since his time. Was this really himself, echoed through time?

_What's your name?_

This was a question that waited for an answer. The spirit knew he had to say something or else the boy might shut him out. _I'm been here so long...my name?_

_You don't remember?_

He was forced to admit it. _No._

_You must've been in there for a long time._

There was no time for small talk. He could just take over the boy's body and be done with it.

_I want to help you bring your spirit to rest._

The spirit laughed. There were many who had put on the Ring before and all of them had weaknesses easy to manipulate until their bodies hung like low fruit. They were usually fantasies of easy lives or of riches and notoriety. No one, so far, had offered to help to with what it was he wanted. This really was his reincarnation after all.

 _Last time I asked you for something you threw me across the room_.

The boy felt bad. The spirit could feel the guilt and this emotion was honest. It was astonishing that in 3000 years he'd become a small boy with no ego or ambition. But why not? He'd locked his blood thirst away.

_I'm sorry. Ask me for something again._

The spirit looked around his soul room, felt his own familiar dread, and smelled his mother's burned body. _Wear the Sennen Ring under your clothes next time you leave the house._

 

* * *

 

Ryou felt awkward with the necklace or, as the spirit had called it, the Sennen Ring. He would carefully research this term the next chance he had.

He wasn't sure why the spirit had asked him to take him out but wasn't too worried. At home, the spirit didn't even speak to him and, if he did in public, no one would know.

It was Halloween, Ryou realized when he got to school and saw everyone wearing costumes. Several girls were wearing witches hats and boys were dressed as varying sports players. It was hard for Ryou to keep track of holidays without someone to remind him of them.

 _It's Halloween_ , he found himself telling the spirit. _That's why everyone's dressed so stupid. Though they wear stupider stuff the rest of the time._

Ryou had to admit – he finds it exciting that there's someone to say this to and, even if there's no reply, he at least gets a vague feeling of shared derision back.

 

* * *

 

The spirit observes. He notices the other children have parents who drop them off. The situation his host had was an anomaly in this world. He notices that the children band together to talk and laugh but that no one approached Bakura Ryou. He also notices that Bakura Ryou speaks of the other children with distaste.

There's an opportunity here, he knows, for him to occupy a place in this boy's loneliness. He just couldn't help but feel slightly impressed at how Bakura Ryou took everything in stride, showing little vulnerability in a world seemingly against him.

The spirit couldn't help but be reminded a little of himself.

 

* * *

 

Niimura-san gave Ryou, who was already incredibly conscious of wearing a huge, gold necklace under his normal gym clothes, no breaks that day in gym.

It was hopeless trying to hide something the size of the Sennen Ring under a thin, white T-shirt. “What's this necklace?” was the first thing Niimura-san greeted Ryou and began the class with. “Now, Bakura, I've had it with you disobeying class regulations, especially clothing regulations. No one else is wearing their costumes or has a problem with the rules. You think you're better than the rest of us here or something?”

Ryou tried to look anywhere except at Niimura-san or at his classmates, too many who had begun snickering a little in private. Every time Niimura-san picked on him, the more of the the class joined in laughing. He felt his face grow hot.

“Now, there's an electric razor on my desk. Go on back to the locker room and wait. Once I get the class started I'm going to shave your head. And I'm confiscating that fancy necklace of yours.”

_Let me take care of this._

The voice came out of nowhere. Ryou hadn't heard from the spirit all day. Niimura-san was waiting for a response.

“I mean, now, Bakura! Move it.”

_What are you going to do?_

A warm feeling covered Ryou from inside out. He didn't have to doubt so much anymore, not when there was someone on his side now.

_Just relax._

Ryou found himself in a comforting room with a bed just right for his size and all his favorite books.

 

* * *

 

After the incident in gym class, Ryou hadn't been allowed to go to school for a week. No one with authority was sure what to do when the only people present had been seven year olds who'd claimed that another seven year old became possessed and took the soul of a middle aged teacher, though it became clear through the investigation that the treatment of the teacher of the seven year old student was a little too much like bullying to be proper. The teacher in question was no longer responsive to any questioning.

Because no one could find any evidence that Ryou had done anything, he wasn't subject to any formal punishment. It appeared that Niimura-san had simply happened to lose his mind during a confrontation with him.

Ryou's father had been called up and had been asked to come back to Japan for the incident, something no one was pleased about. The week with his father had been painful. The apartment Ryou lived in was rented for him after the death of his mother and sister. His father had to sleep on the couch and Ryou spent most of his time in his room.

He remembered nothing from the incident. By the time he'd come back, he was in the principal's office and his father was already on the phone. He'd said as little as possible, spoke only vaguely about the situation. Niimura-san had gotten mad at him, he'd stood up to leave for the locker room, and then the teacher had lost consciousness.

“You don't remember, then, saying 'Let's see how long your cowardly soul lasts in hell' then, Ryou?” The principal had asked him, visibly disturbed. Ryou shook his head. The principal sighed in relief. “I suppose you know, then, that there are some, err, rumors about you, then, that may have, well, spurred the creation of this line.”

Ryou hadn't taken the Ring off since the incident. He knew that it would be normal to be frightened but all he could think about was a new, secret delight that kept him wriggling his toes in his shoes when he wasn't supposed to smile. At his desk he kept voodoo dolls of his least favorite people. He sat in his chair and ran his finger over all the pins he'd stuck through the one of Niimura-san's middle, wondering.

_Did you like that, yadonushi?_

Ryou pulled the stitching apart on the doll with a pin. _What did you do to him?_

_I just told him to go to hell and he did._

Getting up, Ryou tossed his voodoo doll in the wastebasket.

_Can you teach me?_

 

* * *

 

The spirit counted facts with his fingers. Three thousand years and he was getting to know his old soul anew. He savored everything.

Ryou was brought up by his mother with a younger sister until a horrible accident. The father was involved with another woman, a fellow archeologist or, as the spirit saw it, tomb raider, and had been living with her long before the accident. 

Ryou's favorite things were ones that could be kept secret. The age put faith in a strange brand of science but Ryou knew the power of ancient magic, knew that a talisman could stand in for another given the right intention of its user and that the movement of the stars affected more than distant lights in the sky.

Here was a boy smart as the devil, even if his peers would only call him spooky. Only the highest priests in the spirit's day were allowed to blow dust off the old volumes and speak certain names.

The spirit had, of course, been denied. He hadn't even known how to read.

No one knew what Ryou wanted. All his intentions were secret. Rather than lashing out, Ryou made tiny dolls of those he hated most and contained his anger in them. Of course, the spirit knew that this was a poor way to get things done. It was all trial and no result.

In his time, he'd been just one man on an insane quest going against thousands, the laws of a whole country, and a god that would never recognize him. Resisting taking the time to think meant not dwelling on the pain. All that got him was 3000 years of time condemned to think things over.

Was this some twisted act of fate? Making him dependent on a boy who loved his cold calculations as much as he loved his raw anger?

_Maybe it's you who's going to teach me something, yadonushi._

 


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bakura realizes how good Ryou is at things and Ryou doesn't realize how eager he is to please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

  
There was no one in Ryou's life close enough to him to call him by his first name. Years passed and Ryou become yadonushi in his own head, and called the spirit the name everyone else called him – Bakura. After a while, it seemed that Ryou had became a host for his own identity.

Though junior high came fierce, anyone who tried to give Ryou shit would end up trying to stay as far away from him as possible due to reasons that were inexplicable. Neither Bakura nor Ryou allowed anyone to get close.

_I want you to do something for me, yadonushi._

Ryou, who never took the Ring off anymore, even to sleep, answered, _Anything._

Ryou could feel Bakura's delight. There was something Bakura's soul was leftover to do that made him feel hotly vengeful in a way so dangerous Ryou's never developed such a context in his own life, and something else that made him feel a cold despair that Ryou remembered explicitly from when his mother and Amane died.

_I want you to help me locate the other Sennen Items, starting with the Puzzle._

When Ryou got home that evening he'd stayed up until he could call Egypt when his father was off work. His stepmother had been the one to pick up.

“Oh, hi honey,” she said the slightly embarrassed way she did whenever he called and hastily, “I'll get your father.”

“Ryou,” his father said when he picked up.

“Hey, dad,” began Ryou. “I was just cleaning out my closet and came across that necklace you gave me for my seventh birthday. I was really surprised! I totally forgot that you gave me something like that.”

“Ahh.” There was guilt. That was the last birthday present his father had given him. “It was no problem.”

Ryou continued. “This may be a little weird but I was just wondering if you'd found anything similar on your digs.”

“Similar?” Ryou's father asked.

“Yes! Or knew anything about similar items.”

Ryou father sounded a little suspicious when he spoke next. “Well, there's rumors that there are seven items in totals, Ryou, but how did you...”

“Ah! Seven necklaces just like this one?” said Ryou quickly.

_Nice save, yadonushi._

“No, no, not exactly the same,” Ryou father began to explain. “It's seven different items. Your Ring is one of a series. Now, this is just a rumor, mind you, all mixed in with some really mystical stuff. A colleague of mine did excavate a puzzle years ago. This was decades ago.”

Ryou licked his lips before replying. He wanted to make sure his voice sounded normal, not suddenly dry or surprised even as Bakura sent all sorts of vivid emotions through their body.

“Where is the puzzle, dad?”

Ryou's dad answered without the slightest hint of wonderment of his son's sudden interest in ancient Egyptian artifacts. “Domino City.”

 

* * *

 

 _Let me do this_ , Bakura offered when they got home, as he sometimes did, to do the cooking. In his soul room, Ryou thought about Domino City. Though he more or less was in control of his own life, he could hardly suddenly transfer schools without cause for alarm.

Something had to happen so that a new environment in another city would be the only solution. But how would Ryou get his father to decide to send him specifically to Domino City? If something happened when Ryou got there, would his dad get suspicious about him wanting to go to the exact place that had come up on their rare conversation on the phone the other day?

To be so extreme - there was always the possibility that Ryou had gone crazy. It wasn't as if he had anyone around to counter this notion, to justify his reality. The voice in his head could be just that and Ryou wondered at his eagerness to manipulate a move to a different city. This wasn't something Ryou liked to dwell on.

_Dinner's ready, yadonushi._

Ryou was curled up in the bed in his soul room that always fit his body perfectly, getting bigger every year to suit his growth. _I'm not hungry. You eat._

 

* * *

 

“Oi!” Bakura yelled at two teenaged boys who were walking past him. They turned around, questioning if they're been summoned. “Yeah, that's right, you two. The dumb looking ones.”

The taller one approached. They both went to the high school next to Ryou's junior high. “Hey, man, I don't wanna start anything.”

Bakura punched him straight across the face. That was all it took for the two kids to jump him and start hitting. Though they mostly aimed for Bakura's chest, Bakura made sure they got him on the face every time. The wounds were for show.

_Are you sure I can't send these two straight to hell?_

Ryou answered urgently. _It would raise more questions than we need._

Once the two high schoolers finished beating Bakura up, they'd spat on the ground near him, said “Stupid middle schooler” and left. Then Bakura had waited for most of the pain to subside before he let Ryou head straight for the guidance counselor's office.

Ryou had already found a games club at the Domino City high school and when his father was called he'd faked some tears and begged to be transferred where he could potentially start a new life and make friends with kids who had something in common with him – things like the love of playing games.

The guidance counselor supported him and said that finding friends would end the bullying. "Bully" was the magic word. It was a real cause for concern and caused Ryou's father to evaluate all possibilities.

In all his years of being alive, Ryou didn't really like games, preferring solitary activities like reading and making his own ouija boards instead. He'd done his research, however, and found that the games club was started by a Yuugi Motou whose grandfather had incidentally spent some time in the same company as his father during his earliest days in archeology.

 

* * *

 

When they had first found out the Puzzle was in Domino City Bakura had been filled with undirected, urgent rage when Ryou said they couldn't take off that very day. He didn't see why he couldn't take over Ryou's body and figure out how to travel to the place by himself.

 _I know what you're thinking_ , said Ryou.

_Oh, am I freaking you out?_

Bakura had suddenly found himself in Ryou's body.

_I need to be alone to think. You're too hot-headed._

Bakura looked around, got his gravity back. _I_ _f I left?_

In response, Ryou used sarcasm. _Without me?_ This was infuriating.

 _What are you thinking about?_ , Bakura asked.

_It would be helpful to know what you want to do with the Puzzle...If you just need to be in proximity for a little bit, that's different than a longer stay._

Bakura hadn't considered this. He'd imagined wrestling the Puzzle out of some poor soul's hands and going right on with his quest. The reasons Bakura wanted the Puzzle first were strictly emotional.

_I need to keep an eye on this one while we look for the other ones._

Bakura dreaded more questions, such as what the hell he wanted to do with all seven Sennen Items and why the Puzzle was so important.

All he got from Ryou that night, however, was a simple  _Okay_.

 

* * *

 

“This is our new student, Bakura Ryou,” the teacher at Domino High told the class. Up front stood Ryou, hair just as white and wild as ever, new school uniform neat and small briefcase in hand.

The girls were whispering, something Ryou noticed with incredulity and summed up to being because he was new. Other things he noticed included the small boy with tri-colored hair sitting in the back of the room wearing an enormous golden necklace with a puzzle shaped pendant.

He waited until lunch was almost over to approach them. There were four of them, including Yuugi Motou. There was a blond boy who spoke too loud, a brown haired boy who looked bored, and a girly girl who kept texting on her phone. Ryou had seen all their pictures on the school website.

“Hello, everyone,” Ryou said in his sweetest voice possible, complete with a head tilt, “Can I play with you guys?”

 

* * *

 

Bakura had to hand it to Ryou. The kid knew exactly what he was doing.

Ryou had told him to leave the mission to him, that he would find a way to ensure their proximity to the object at hand and that he'd call on Bakura for help when he needed it. Then he'd constructed a small scale model of a city from a children's gaming kit, charmed tiny voodoo dolls made of wood, and told Bakura to trust him. In the end, he let Ryou take the reigns because he knew it wasn't Ryou's own nightmares that sometimes woke him up at night.

It took only a day for Ryou to infiltrate Yuugi's group of friends and lead them up the steps to his own apartment building. Bakura heard none of their conversation. All he saw, the only thing he wanted, was the Sennen Puzzle hanging on the smallest boy's neck.

_Take over._

It was Ryou as he fussed over five cups of tea.

_What?_

Ryou poured sugar in his own cup and stirred. _I don't know how to play this game._

 

* * *

 

Games, Bakura liked to play. He didn't see the point in winning a round of Monster World with his most hated enemy but supposed there was a highlight to it and let himself get a little carried away. He was almost elated when he found the pharaoh before him.

3000 years of waiting and there he was. He was right in front of Bakura and it would be so easy to crush his eyes, to rip his scalp off, to cut his intestines out. All his companions were children who had never fought a real fight and he, himself, was contained in the body of a child.

If Bakura killed the vessel of the pharaoh right there and then, he'd just have hidden out in the Puzzle again and it would have been the all too familiar waiting game once more.

Alright, let's give this a try, Bakura thought. Ryou wanted him to play this game against the pharaoh. The only thing he could do was give it all he had.

 

* * *

 

At the last second, Ryou forced control. Bakura was inches away from winning but Ryou knew the rules better and had panted a tiny version of himself inside. His role was the quiet rule-breaker.

“Stop! Stop it!” Ryou screamed but it wasn't enough. There was too much room for doubt to settle in later and what Ryou was after was the eternal, uncompromising trust of his new friends.

He impaled his own hand on the tower, biting his lip and tasting blood at the pain.

 

* * *

 

It had been a few days since the incident with Yuugi Motou and, already, the phone was ringing.

“Moshi moshi,” said Ryou, barely. Pain relievers made him sleepy.

Yuugi sounded nervous and apologetic. “Bakura-kun! I was just checking...are you alright? There's assignments and the teacher asked...I mean, I guess I wanted to call to make sure you were okay.”

Bakura loved to watch Ryou act sweet. It was such a nice look on him. “Yuugi-kun? I'm okay! I'm okay but I'm really sorry about the other day.”

“It's okay! It's me who should apologize, for making you save our lives. I mean, I know what it's like to have another you.” The last part of this was said quietly as if Yuugi wasn't sure whether it was okay to bring this up. “And it must be scary, I mean, to have one that...” Yuugi didn't finish this sentiment.

Uneasily, Ryou laughed. “I'm a little jealous of what you and your spirit have, Yuugi-kun. Unfortunately, I guess my spirit isn't exactly on the right side. Before the other day, I didn't even know he existed. This really explains all those blackouts...”

The conversation turned to other things after that, such as how long Ryou had been playing Monster World and about Duel Monsters. By the end of it, Yuugi called Ryou a friend.

What Ryou had done guaranteed Yuugi Motou's trust and ensured proximity to the Item at hand when it mattered most. Not only that, Ryou would be able to get away with doing questionable things right under their noses and be able to chalk it up to the evil spirit controlling him.

Bakura studied him own reflection in the mirror that guarded Ryou's soul room. He had a self image now – the mirror image of Ryou. This was the only him that existed relevant to who he was now.

Ryou's plan wasn't brilliant only because it got them exactly where they needed to be in relation to the Puzzle and Yuugi but because it used Bakura's uncontrollable anger as easily as if it were just another pawn in Ryou's army of chess pieces.

Bakura supposed that, all along, he'd always been someone else's pawn. That was probably the only role that really suited him. The best game he'd been used for so far, however, had been the one Bakura Ryou was playing.

 

* * *

 

_What are you going to do with the set now?_

At first Ryou didn't know what Bakura was talking about. Then, he realized he had been dusting the barely used Monster World gameboard for too long and mumbled something about throwing it away later.

_You're materially spoiled._

Ryou didn't even flinch. _My daddy's the head curator at a big museum and I'm the only member of his first family alive._

_Daddy issues?_

_Like that's special._

_I don't think I'm good at this game yet. Play with me._

_That's because you don't know how to cheat. This game makes no sense._

Trememdous glee hit Ryou from Bakura. _Oh? I'm a poor cheat?_

Feeling challenged, Ryou ended up playing Bakura four times and won every game.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't one of those dreams you woke up from thinking, “Gee, that was a great night's rest” but one that made you roll over feeling that sleep had robbed you while dreading more of the same.

Someone chasing him. He hid himself in the plumping. There was the awful smell of himself, the awful smell of something much more terrifying, and the feeling of shame. There was a red coat taken from the dead – a promise.

Ryou woke up in his soul room. A perpetual, twinkling song from his childhood calmed him.

_Come over._

Bakura had never let him into his soul room before and preferred to stay away from Ryou's.

 _I want to show you something_ , Bakura baited.

There was a mirror in Ryou's room that Ryou could control with his mind. If he told it to show him the past, it would show him whatever he asked. Today, however, all the mirror had for him was an unfamiliar door.

The door was heavier than Ryou expected but it opened with a good, hard pull. Inside, a mirror image of himself reclined on a bed in a small, dark room that was too hot and smelled burnt.

Bakura held himself different than Ryou, back straight and shoulders back, posture almost cocky. His eyes were half lidded and he had mouth that looked careless, as if it would collapse into a sneer all on its own if left unguarded.

“Welcome to my room,” said Bakura, looking more sarcastic than he sounded. “Why don't you sit down?”

Ryou was too busy looking at everything. The walls were baked earth and the floor was caked with dirt. A sense of hopelessness and danger hung around and there was a dread that the walls would collapse at any second.

“I don't like it.”

“What's there to like?”

The bed itself was hard and the covering rough. Captivated, Ryou reached out to touch Bakura but his hand was caught.

“It this a dream?”

Bakura pulled Ryou closer and Ryou obliged. He laid his head down on a thin pillow, sprawled out next to Bakura's legs, and closed his eyes.

“I want you to take a look at some of my memories.”

Every image Ryou had just woken up from bombarded him. He was a little boy in the dream, younger than when he'd first picked up the Ring. The images were coming together with clarity that wasn't available in sleep. It was a man that was chasing him, a solider, and he'd hidden himself by crawling into the hole of a outhouse filled with feces and held his breath for as long as he could. It was hours before he could come out and when he did he'd found that he'd only survived the greatest tragedy of his life.

Ryou forced his eyes open and gasped in terror. There was so much terror.

Bakura stared at him. “Can you build a Monster World from that?”

Pressing a hand to his brows for pressure, Ryou frowned. “You want me to make a RPG game from...”

“Can you do it?”

Ryou took one of Bakura's hands and used it to check his own face for tears. “Maybe. Later. Give me more information.”

When Ryou pulled the covers over them, Bakura wrapped an arm around his waist. That first time he'd seen Bakura face to face, his presence felt familiar. When Ryou woke up, he was in his own bed, Sennen Ring comfortingly warm on his chest.

 


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bakura sees something he wants and Ryou lets him have it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I changed POV during the sex but didn't want to change it. Oops!
> 
> I just made a tumblr. Follow and I'll follow back? Same handle as here - booooin is all I use. I've been dumping tendershipping~

_You reckon I'll need suntan lotion?_ Ryou packed a knife, wondering.

_What the hell is suntan lotion?_

_I burn_ , said Ryou. All he got back was a feeling of incredulity.

Two days ago Ryou had run into Yuugi and his friends at school, all four of them over zealous about how Yuugi had just beaten a man in a game of Duel Monsters who cheated using subliminal messages in a tape. Apparently, it had been a mindfuck.

Honda had teased with both hand in his pockets. “You like occult stuff, right, Bakura-kun?”

“Eh? What do you like that stuff for?” said Jounouchi.

Ryou had shaken his head furiously. “Oh, I think it's interesting.”

That afternoon, Ryou sat cross-legged on Yuugi's carpeted living room, watching the television with the others. The tape, played back, one half of a game that Honda and Jounouchi talked through, telling Ryou and exclaiming every play Yuugi had made the previous day. A glint of gold was what caught his eye.

_That._

Ryou asked, “Could you rewind just a little bit? I think I lost track of it all...”

Jounouchi was flabbergasted. “Rewind? But we're just getting to the good stuff.”

 _No need, yadonushi. I saw what I saw._ Desire that didn't belong to Ryou made his heart jump.

“We're all going to this championship,” said Honda when the tape had finished playing, “To watch Yuugi become Duelist Champion.”

“That sounds like fun,” said Ryou without stalling. “I haven't gone on a trip for a long time. Would you mind if I joined you?”

 

* * *

 

Being around people all the time was exhausting for Ryou and he found himself shuffling behind just to get a moment or two in his own skin and to allow his thoughts to play back to himself. The sun made his skin feel feverish.

_I wonder if they can tell us apart._

Ryou smiled, watching Jounouchi play against another duelist dressed as a fisherman. _You don't know me well enough to play me._

_Oh? You're saying I can't behave?_

_I'm saying I'm the prettier twin._

A small gust of wind blew into Ryou's ear. _How did you do that?_

_There's a lot that I can do, yadonushi, especially to you._

 

* * *

 

Ryou had known that Bakura wasn't good at playing his role. After throwing away the Ring as hard as he possibly could, Honda looked at him, smiling as if Ryou was supposed to run up and throw his arms around him in gratitude. Ryou chose to fake being out of it instead.

“Where are we? What have I done?” he asked, gesturing wildly at the slumped over figures on the ground.

Honda thrust a hand into his face. “Don't worry, Bakura-kun. I got you.”

They didn't get more than ten steps before the Ring was hanging around his neck again, safe under his clothes.

_You didn't think I'd leave you all alone, did you?_

_You get carried away._

_I love that you love that about me._

Ryou had to bite himself on the lip to keep from smiling.

 

* * *

 

The last time he'd itched to rip the Sennen Eye out of someone's head, Bakura had been denied the pleasure. This time, he slipped a finger into a corner and carefully worked the Item out from the back.

 _Ew_ , Ryou told him. Bakura licked it to spite him. _That's unsanitary._

_Eating freshly killed meat is normal and healthy. What's unsanitary is what you do, storing all that meat in an electric box like it's a vegetable._

Ryou changed the subject. _You've been watching me do tarot._

_I thought I'd try one of your little magic tricks._

_Magic is where you pull a rabbit out of your sock._

_Now, that's one you've_ got _to learn._

The Sennen Eye seemed to like the most blood thirsty people. Kicking back Pegasus's head so that his dead eyes stared up to the ceiling, Bakura felt such satisfying vindication he revolted even himself. He'd almost forgotten who he was and what he had died his first death to commit himself to.

The point was never the execution. It was to make sure there was only one thing he could possibly think about.

 

* * *

 

Back in Domino City, Ryou found it hard to do the simplest things, even what he had always found therapeutic. His hands would shake so hard that peeling carrots or wiping down the counter were too tedious to carry all the way through. Late nights, he paced.

Bakura's elation made him manic but it was hardly like he could tell Bakura to stop being happy. Ryou took sleeping pills instead.

_Come to my room._

Ryou was tossing and turning, eyelids heavy but thoughts racing. He was in no mood to chit chat.

_To do what?_

_Now that you're all grown up, I want to reward you for being such a good host._

Ryou was about to reply that he felt more like he was getting punished than rewarded these days but he was sucked through a hidden current that came from behind his back into pitch darkness. When he looked around, he was laying between Bakura's legs, leaning on his chest, in the small bed in that hot, dreadful room Bakura had.

“I don't like it in here,” Ryou reminded him.

“Me neither.” Bakura had him by the hair and Ryou's head was pulled, hard, to the side. The move exposed Ryou's neck which Bakura bit on.

“Ow,” said Ryou pointedly. “You need to calm down.”

Softly, Bakura drew a line down the center of Ryou's chest with his finger and when he got to his stomach, where Ryou's shirt had slipped to expose, Ryou couldn't help but push his hips up, heat rushing downward.

Bakura murmured in his ear. “You've never been kissed before, have you?”

“Are you asking for my first kiss?”

“I just want to make you feel good.”

Ryou wrapped his arms around Bakura's neck and pulled their mouths together brutally. It turned out Bakura kissed like a tease. Ryou wanted it hard and without room to breathe.

“Put your lips like this,” said Bakura when they pulled apart and showed him.

When Bakura scratched down Ryou's sides he moaned. When he pushed his thumbs down the grooves inside Ryou's hipbones and stroked the skin there Ryou grabbed the back of his neck. When he pulled Ryou's boxers slightly down to kiss him on the abdomen Ryou panted.

“You said I didn't know you well enough to play with you?” asked Bakura doing a poor impression of naivete.

Ryou glared. “I meant that you're piss poor at playing dumb.” This must have been exactly the response Bakura was looking for because he was all wild smiles.

“Have you been angry with me before? But I would've remembered being this turned on.”

Before Ryou could respond Bakura yanked his shirt over his head.

“You need to start asking first,” Ryou said hotly.

“Can I?” asked Bakura, trailing his fingers from Ryou's chest slowly down to where his pubic hair showed from the top of his boxers, “touch from here to here?”

Ryou grabbed Bakura by the front of his shirt, pulled him into a sloppy kiss, and wrapped his legs around him. With the same hand, Bakura teased Ryou's boxers off one hip and his cock sprang loose.

“I can touch this?” he asked, running a finger up the underside. Ryou's arms pulled Bakura closer by shoulders as he arched up as if to say _I need you closer_ but Bakura was reaching over Ryou and looking for a pillow. “Lay down. Feel comfortable.”

Between Ryou's legs, Bakura teased the head of Ryou's cock with his tongue until fingers in his hair pushed his head down and eye contact became too intense. If this was what Ryou was going to always be like in bed, so easy and hot, Bakura's sentence on Earth had just turned that much sweeter. It was a rush to get Ryou to bite a knuckle of his thumb and come, blushing.

“You want a taste?”

“You have an oral fixation.” Post-orgasm Ryou purred.

“Whatever the hell that is.”

“What are you supposed to do after sex?”

The way Ryou looked at Bakura was so earnest Bakura kissed him on the side of his mouth. “C'mere.”

 

* * *

 

 _Take your time. I need this to be perfect_ , said Bakura, bordering on annoying.

Every inch of Ryou's living room floor was covered in mini houses, tiny people figurines, and wood shavings. He listened to a documentary on the Saturn conspiracy as he worked.

_Have I let you down so far?_

Every night Bakura fed Ryou sleepless nights of his first robbery, his first kill, the first time he'd gotten caught, branded on the face, and thrown into the desert, and the first month he'd suffered as a desolate orphan whoring because it was less illegal than stealing. Bakura had survived through all but hell though, Ryou supposed, he'd ended up surviving through that as well.

_How far is the Capital from the Nile?_

_Half a day's walk. On horseback, form high noon to quarter sun._

Ryou scowled and consulted a book.

_You owe me._

Bakura agreed, _Everything._

 


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bakura feels a lot of pain and Ryou gets mad that he's kinda getting ghosted by a ghost.

Every morning was with Bakura, everyday spent in his own head, every evening building Bakura's Memory World, and Ryou lived for his nights, scared he was prone to over-fulfilling prophecies. Having Bakura was like keeping a small rock hidden in a pocket or an inside joke no one else was in on. Ryou didn't know his skin could flush the way it did.

_Play hooky today. I'll make it worth your while._

Ryou was headed to school. _I'm too good for you, sorry._

 _Pretend I'm homework. Do me all night long,_ said Bakura and when that got no reaction, _How's your left eye? You've been looking right all morning._

 _Are you a cornfield?_ asked Ryou.

_Why? Are you stalking me?_

Then Anzu ran past, gasping in overdrama. Ryou had never seen her alone. “Anzu-chan!”

“Someone's stolen Yuugi's puzzle, Bakura-kun! I'm going to get the others.”

It wasn't as if Ryou wouldn't have held Bakura back but he wished that he'd give him warning before possessing him.

 _You're dramatic_ , Ryou said.

Bakura didn't answer. There was less visibility in Ryou's soul room than he was used to though he couldn't be sure why. It seemed like not all the objects were where they looked to be but shifted slightly to one side or another. A powerful current, electric, pulled them into an alleyway.

“Arrows?” said Bakura out loud and not to Ryou. “Hansel and Gretel. I don't need these but someone else might...”

By the time they left the alley, all the arrows formed an impossible map.

 

* * *

 

The one who held the Sennen Rod wasn't Set, whose soul had no reason to linger. It was one of the pharaoh's servants, Bakura could recognize the cocky accent anywhere, but this one had turned deviant.

Later, this would be useful. For now, Bakura had to make sure the Puzzle stayed with its keeper.

“Let me help you pick these up,” Bakura said to Yuugi in what he thought himself was a poor imitation of Ryou. Yuugi didn't seem to notice. “You're the only rightful owner of the Puzzle.”

_I don't sound like that._

_Shut up._

Bakura's mind was on a piece of puzzle jammed in his fist, the smallest piece he could find, corners jagged.

He'd already divided his soul once and lost half of his humanity. It would be a tragedy to lose the rest. No one could say that Bakura wasn't impulsive.

 

* * *

 

 _Why did you do that?_ , asked Ryou, hands numb and knowing exactly what Bakura had done. By the time Ryou got to school, he'd missed all his morning classes. He barely heard anything the teacher said.

Half of Ryou's life was Bakura's. When Bakura removed half of his remaining soul, the light in his soul room had turned off and every object had flashed white. Something was off about Bakura's voice and his emotions were completely absent.

_The Puzzle belongs with the pharaoh's vessel._

_That's not what I'm talking about._ There was no reply.

All morning, Bakura shut him out. Since Ryou picked up the Ring, there were few times this had happened and Ryou wasn't used to the feeling of being pushed away from what he'd come to think of as a part of his own mind. Only when he'd sat down with Yuugi and his friends did Bakura reconnect

He really had no idea what Bakura's end game was. In fact, Ryou wasn't sure that Bakura himself knew exactly what he was doing. He was more of the type to react without thinking than to follow through on a carefully constructed plan. Ryou was sure that leaving a piece of Bakura's soul in the Puzzle would only be useful if they messed up - something he hadn't planned on doing.

_You fucked up._

Normal Bakura would have made a sick joke that made Ryou cover his mouth. This Bakura flared with anger and shut off their connection completely.

 

* * *

 

In his soul room, Bakura was recovering by freaking out. Last time he cut his soul in half he'd had 3000 years to get used to the feeling. This time, it still hurt like hell and Ryou expected him to go on like normal immediately.

He couldn't sit down. Every time Ryou tried to access his emotions or prodded him into saying something he felt such extreme anger he had to get Ryou out of his head completely.

Bakura didn't see the point of being a prisoner of a soul room if he barely had a soul left and trashed it the best he could, splitting the pillows open and breaking the bed. It surprised him that he still had humanity left to bifurcate. What did he have to split in half when he was soulless in the first place? He had an eternity in a messed up room to look forward to, he supposed, after everything.

At some point he remembered that hardly anything mattered as long as Ryou's soul came and left this world whole.

 

* * *

 

That evening was the first evening Ryou spent alone. He kept looking at the clock, once when he got home at 5:24 PM, once after cooking at 6:38 PM, after he finished his homework, when he started on Memory World, and when he put himself to bed. At none of those times did Bakura rejoin the soul connection he'd severed.

Memory Word was hard to concentrate on. Ryou's mind kept drifting off and going over that brief moment when Bakura had held a piece of the Sennen Puzzle in his hand. He understood that what Bakura had lost in that moment was irretrievable.

What he hated was that Bakura was able to disconnect from him at will but he didn't even know how to prevent Bakura from taking over his body if he wanted to. Ryou was a captive in his own body.

Bakura had left him alone with a monster and there was nothing Ryou could do, neither before nor after.

When the next few weeks were the same, Ryou cleaned up the Memory World in his living room. He supposed that his life had always been monotonous but hadn't noticed until he was forced to focus on it. Get up, go to school, come home, eat, homework, and sleep. All his books were boring and his hobbies trivial.

_Hello._

Ryou had been working on an algebra assignment when Bakura reentered his mind. His hand paused mid calculation. Then he kept on writing as if nothing had happened.

_Kept our home orderly, have you?_

Ryou was subtracting the square root of two from both sides of an equation.

_Ignoring me, yadonushi?_

The mechanical pencil in Ryou's hand was gripped so tight its lead broke.

 

* * *

 

Everyone in their homeroom was excited about their city being turned into a Duel Monsters battleground. There were ways of participating, even if you weren't a duelist and news of where duels would be happening and which players would be mostly likely to win spread like wildfire. Yuugi and his friends were obsessed.

Ryou found it hard to fake normalcy, much less enthusiasm, and stayed away from the huddles of excited teenagers that his classmates would turn into between classes and during breaks. It was as well. Maybe it was that two guards that Bakura had turned comatose hadn't woken up or the off way he had behaved during the fire, not quite like Ryou, but the four were chilly when he got too close. It was just another place where Ryou was no longer welcome.

On the day Battle City started Ryou went to his favorite occult bookstore. Everywhere he went people walked around talking loudly with Duel Disks strapped to their arms.

_Yadonushi, I need your help._

It had been weeks since Bakura had last tried to speak to him. In the bookstore, Ryou picked up a book of Edgar Cayce's sleeping prophecies.

 _What do you want me to do?_ Bakura had snapped. _Beg?_

Ryou shut the book he was holding, put it back on the shelf, and walked out of the store.

 

* * *

 

The next few days, all Ryou heard was Bakura's badgering.

_Answer me, yadonushi._

_You can't ignore me forever._

_Are you angry with me, yadonushi?_

_You know you miss me._

Ryou's head hurt.

 _What do you want?_ , he finally snapped. There was a brief moment of Bakura's glee before Ryou felt himself smothered in an affection too sweet and sudden to be anything but artificial. _Stop emotionally manipulating me._

_I just want to make you feel good._

The words made Ryou's stomach drop. He remembered them from some long ago time.

_If you were to build a Duel Monsters deck, what type would it be?_

Ryou had just finished stir frying some onions and peppers. He took the time to split the pan between a dish and a bento box before he replied.

_If I'm going to help you, I want something in return._

_Oh, our love's gotten conditional?_

_I don't remember saying that I loved you._

The rice was ready and Ryou added half to the dish.

_Your terms?_

Ryou took a carton of tofu out of the fridge and cut a block of it off. This, he transferred to another plate and added a small amount of soy sauce. After that he added a garnish of pickled ginger and took both dishes to the small table by the kitchen window where he usually ate.

_I want you to show me how to close this connection._

 

* * *

 

 

It felt good to concentrate on something for once. The occult cards Ryou collected were spread out on his bed as he worked through strategies. The only reason he could concentrate on this particular task was because of its association with Bakura but he chose not to dwell on that. He considered this a goodbye.

Most players relied heavily on powerful monsters to protect their life points and to attack their opponents. It was truly stupid that no one considered just how useful a powerful graveyard could be and that it hardly mattered how many life points you had – it would never affect the outcome of the game. Having one left was the same as having a full 4000.

Ryou built a deck around the possibility of death. He had no fear of it. The fear was what made other players lose their footing, always building strategies around losing, losing their monsters, losing themselves. Ryou was never afraid of losing himself. When you weren't afraid of your shadow side, there was no way for someone to kill you.

An occult deck was almost impossible for an average duelist to counter. Ryou's strategies almost never featured an attack but tight systems of trap cards, magic cards, and special abilities. The more monsters that went into his graveyard, the the powerful his deck became and the closer Bakura was to death, the better his chances of winning would be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the anime canon for this chapter because I wanted to introduce Malik a little earlier. I hope someone out there is enjoying this! Let me know if you are.
> 
> I want to write: a westworld!crossover where westworld is ancient Egypt. Thief King Bakura is a host and Ryou is one of the people working at Westworld programming him. I dislike the characters in the show as much as I like the universe, though, and barely get through it.
> 
> Or, a yakuza!au thiefshipping fic...


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bakura has to do everything himself and Ryou neglects aftercare.

The one who held the Sennen Rod was approaching the city. Waiting was an impossible game that Bakura had no patience for.

His plan: get the Rod, play the game, and beat the pharaoh. Once he had the Rod he would give it to the pharaoh. He knew none of it made any sense but, hey, Bakura was reacting off of age old fantasies and a gut reaction that felt like hunger.

As soon as Ryou came up with a couple of good strategies with the occult deck, Bakura locked him in his soul room, making sure the door was double locked. There were still some old tricks Bakura knew about the Ring that Ryou hadn't even imagined. Then he stole a Duel Disk off the first kids he saw.

The Ring took Bakura along alleyways until a motorcycle approached him too quickly and he had to run to jump right in front of it.

“What are you trying to do? Kill both of us?” shouted the rider.

“Give me the Sennen Rod.”

“Who are you?”

“Give it to me.”

The rider was a platinum blond teen decorated in gold. In his time, Bakura had seen too much of this sort. They were born into privileged families with special jobs from the monarchy. None of them had to work for a living and most were insane from incestual breeding.

The brat had the gall to try the Rod on him. It was too bad for him that Bakura was a soul creature barely in his right mind.

All that wealth and a hunkering grudge to bear – that was what Bakura saw. There was instability and ambition. The Rod had always chosen the best tools. The kid's plan was cheap and intricate – to cheat his way into the finals of a children's card game and to turn the pharaoh's vessel's friend against him. It was a child's game of superficial revenge that ended with putting the pharaoh's soul to final rest. If Bakura had it his way, the pharaoh would never rest.

“It seems that we are after the same goal,” said Bakura. The kid stood down almost immediately. He wasn't a fighter.

“I'm Malik,” he said.

 

* * *

 

There was no way Ryou's body was very heavy but Malik looked pissed about having to drag it through the city streets. Bakura kept his eyes shut, letting himself breath heavily every now and then. And Ryou said he did a poor impression of him.

“The pharaoh's weakness is his friends,” Bakura had told Malik, feeding him what he already knew. “My host has an interesting position. They pretend to care about him.”

The entitled brat had demanded Bakura prove his allegiance. It was so obvious when one grew up with servants.

Bakura knew Malik was already in his mind and, so, said nothing before he pulled out a blade. He told Malik to find the blond and the girl. Malik had snapped that he already knew what to do.

“Bakura!” the blond kid, Jounounchi, predictably shouted, running up with the girl.

“I found him on the street like this,” said Malik, quickly doing away with his pissed expression. “I treated him as best I could.”

“Who did this to you?” Jounounchi grabbed Bakura, who let himself fall on the child.

Bakura tried to stutter over his words. “I-I don't remember. When I woke up...”

Malik looked relieved to have someone take Bakura off his shoulders. “I'll call an ambulance.”

The kids Bakura stole his Duel Disk from came running in and everyone was in an upheaval. Jounounchi, trigger happy, attacked someone and Bakura enjoyed seeing Malik take a punch to the face.

“I don't remember how I got this,” he made sure to mention about the Disk.

Yuugi's grandfather ended up being the one to take him off everyone's shoulders and into a cab. He was dead weight, after all, and the kids had other things to do.

 

* * *

 

Winning six locator cards was a piece of cake with Ryou's occult deck. Bakura, adrenaline rushed, barely feigned Ryou as he walked into the Battle Stadium.

 _If you give us away I'll take over your host,_ said Malik in Bakura's head. For a moment, Bakura thought his nails would make his palm bleed.

Malik thought Ryou was susceptible and unaware, just another one of Yuugi's friends, and Bakura let him believe it. Bakura would sooner bow before a king than let Malik get anywhere near Ryou.

“I'm really fine,” said Bakura, shaking his hands in front of him the way Ryou did when he swerved attention and poked the wound. “Look!”

They fussed, appalled. “You should really be in the hospital, Bakura-kun.”

Malik walked in after that under a bogus name and courted Yuugi too aggressively.

_You're the one who's going to give us away._

Malik didn't even look at him. _My brother's coming._

The Ring pointed where Bakura wanted and the illusion was complete. Yuugi and his friends gaped the wrong enemy and ignored the wolves in sheepskin. All that was left to do was sit back and enjoy fine cuts of meat courtesy of Kaiba Corporation.

 

* * *

 

_Don't forget, God is against you._

As if Bakura could forget. His own leftover identity was of the forsaken. The gods had condemned him since he was born and never allowed him even the space to recover his sanity. It didn't matter. He would take them on. Little mattered when you'd already stewed in hell for the last 3000 years.

Bakura loved the way Ryou strategized. It was the most self destructive scheme he'd ever seen anyone play and left the pharoah in a mindfuck. Which one of his monsters was really on his side?

Slifer, however, responded to his king.

 _Let your host take over,_ commanded Malik of Bakura who didn't budge. _Do it now if you want to win!_

It was an experiment. Look Ryou, at what I've done to us, Bakura wanted to say. Look at how I tore up your body. He'd often fantasized about Ryou angry in tears, imagined it solo with heat on his breath, but the real Ryou only got quieter and colder as he got angrier.

_Wake up, Cinderella._

As soon as Bakura left the body, the knees impacted on the ground and he halfway felt Ryou's lungs deflate. Pain only made Bakura stronger and he'd curated a heavy amount in a short amount of time. The white bandage around Ryou's arm turned red as his heart sped. Bakura could smell the blood.

“That boy is under the control of the Sennen Rod,” anounced Malik's brother. Everyone turned towards him except Bakura. He'd never seen Ryou cry the way he did then. “If you attack him now, he may never recover.”

“So, that's your plan,” he said to Malik. The seconds were winding down. The bandage was no longer sufficient to soak up the excess blood from Ryou's arm. “You've really tied the pharaoh's hands,” Bakura congratulated Malik.

Ryou wasn't looking at his arm. He was too busy gasping through his sobs. Bakura wondered what he was crying about.

“It's too bad, Malik. There's ways I like to win and ways I don't,” said Bakura and grabbed Ryou by the back of the shirt. “Get out of my way,” he whispered into Ryou's ear, threw him back, and stood with both arms outstretched like a scarecrow in the wind.

“Attack me, Yuugi! Don't worry, this host is important to me. I'll let you win this time!”

 

* * *

 

The Ring no longer followed its keeper, noted Bakura. His connection to Ryou wasn't what it had been. The girl, taken by Malik, had to carry the Ring to where it was supposed to be. As soon as the Ring entered the room, Bakura shut Ryou in his soul room again where he could feel nothing and took all the pain.

The reason Bakura called Ryou yadonushi was because he saw himself as a parasite. There were little bits of him everywhere – in the Ring, in the Puzzle, in Ryou, and none of them belonged. The only place he truly had a place, after all, was boiled down and bled dry into the gold of the Sennen Items.

All the ways he'd tried to avenge his family had became a topsy turvy upside down ride where killing someone was a blessing and letting them suffer life became the ultimate punishment. Bakura wasn't sure if he was after immortality or if his fragmented soul, tired after an eternity, just wanted final rest. He wasn't sure if the point was to kill the pharaoh or to make sure he could never walk into the afterlife in peace.

The only thing Bakura was absolutely certain of was his own awe at having been reincarnated whole.

 _I want to help you bring your spirit to rest_ , Ryou had said to him when they first met. The concept had been incredibly alienating.

Malik was one of the pharaoh's servants and understood his master well. The pharaoh's servants, however, never quite got around to coming around Bakura's side of town. They never even got around to knowing his real name.

 

* * *

 

Ryou had been in his own skin for 30 seconds. It had hit, disoriented, and left him like whiplash.

The thing was, Ryou didn't care what Bakura did with his body as long as he didn't hear head or tail of it. All Ryou asked for was not to get involved. As soon as he finished assembling a deck for Bakura, he'd snuck into his soul room.

 _Do whatever you're planning,_ he'd told Bakura before shutting down all communication. _Just make sure I wake up in my own bed._

Ryou had not woken up in his own bed. He'd woken up on top of a blimp with the wind cutting into an arm numb with pain and fingers cold with the lack of blood. Warmth had gushed out of his wound. He was shaking and cold but his head and chest were feverish.

Yuugi stood in front him. Ryou realized he'd come around to a confused Yuugi in a game before. Once again, Yuugi must have been wondering, is it really okay to attack Ryou?

I thought I told you not to get me involved, he wanted to tell Bakura. Switching mid game is something I came up with, he wanted to say, and it reflects poorly on you if you can't come up with anything else. There had been a lot Ryou wanted to tell Bakura.

Ryou didn't cry because he couldn't understand what was happening. He understood it all extremely well. He cried because the last time he had done so was when his mother and sister died. It was doubtful that an opportunity like this would come his way anytime soon.

In the ten seconds left in the match, Ryou had no time to think and it had been bliss. It had felt good to cry. Ryou would've loved it if Yuugi had attacked and given him the excuse he needed to really break down. Saving was the last thing he needed.

“Get out of my way.”

His soul connection with Bakura was open for the first time in more than a month. Since Anzu pressed the Ring to Ryou's chest, neither of them had made a move to close it nor to speak. In his room, Ryou watched his mirror.

 _I want you to come visit me_ , he told Bakura and waited.

 

* * *

 

 

The last time Bakura had been in Ryou's soul room, Ryou was seven and had just picked up the Ring. The ghost of his dead little sister had warned him to stay away.

His reflection looked wild eyed and hungry. Bakura found himself knocking.

Inside, Ryou was sitting cross legged on his bed. His face was blank and he never broke eye contact.

“Long time no see,” said Bakura, leaning on the doorway. Another step and he would be inside.

“The reason you're not good at pretending to be me is because you have no sense of self control.”

Bakura poked a tongue in his cheek with no humor. “Lecturing me, yadonushi?”

“No. Come all the way in and shut the door.”

Half a moment passed before Bakura obeyed, turned around, and mocked bowed. Ryou inhaled deep.

“I want you to make me lose control.”

There was a second in which Bakura almost said something sarcastic but he bit his tongue in time. They hadn't broken eye contact and it began to feel a little too long. Still, Bakura wouldn't be the one to look away.

“Lose control how?” Bakura already knew. “Aren't you a little young for this?”

“I have an old soul.”

Every lifetime, Bakura smiled easily. It was cruel. “Beg me.”

Ryou looked cross until he understood. “Please.”

“Harder.”

“ _Please._ ”

Bakura strolled across Ryou's room, not looking at him. “Not feeling it yet.”

“Please, I-”

“Take off your clothes and beg on your knees.”

When Ryou was naked he looked at the floor. _“Please,_ Bakura.”

“Is that my name or is that just what you call me because you think I'm just like you?”

Ryou didn't move an inch.

“You can call me master, pet. Straighten up and put your hands behind your back.”

Ryou's stared. “Yes, master.”

Only when Ryou clasped one wrist with the other hand, vulnerable in front, did Bakura come sit on the bed. He gathered all of Ryou's hair into a ponytail and held him by it. “Why don't you show me your appreciation?”

Ryou tried to use his hands to unbutton Bakura's jeans but got a slap on the ass. It took a few humiliating tries before he was carefully pulling a zipper with his teeth . Ryou barely had his lips around Bakura's cock when Bakura started pumping his head up and down.

“Try not to gag, pet,” said Bakura and when Ryou couldn't, “It's okay. I don't really care.” He pumped Ryou's head up and down until Ryou's face was wet from tears and drool and he no longer resisted but let Bakura use his mouth as fast and hard as he liked. The entire time, Bakura made sure Ryou still held his hands behind his back.

“Spit,” he said, pulled Ryou up and pushed two fingers in his mouth. As Bakura rubbed saliva over his fingers and around Ryou's open mouth, he watched Ryou's face carefully. It was full of tears with eyes sharper than Bakura's ever seen them.

Still holding Ryou by the ponytail Bakura dragged his head to the front of the bed, making Ryou scrabble, and pushed his head into the mattress. He slapped Ryou's ass before slipping two fingers in. It was too fast and Ryou was too tense so he slipped one out and fucked Ryou gently. Only when Ryou began to push back in a rhythm did Bakura add the other and spread.

Ryou rolled his hips.

“I'm going to fuck you,” Bakura said carefully and spit on Ryou's crack. He used his still wet cock to slide the saliva to Ryou's hole and push. Immediately, Ryou moaned and grabbed a pillow.

“I'm sure I told you to keep your hands behind you,” said Bakura and grabbed them, holding them in place. He stroked Ryou's hip with his other hand. “What do you say now?”

Half of Ryou's face was smashed into the pillow. “I'm sorry, master.”

“Now, show me how you want to be fucked,” said Bakura. Ryou gradually moved his hips, trying. “I don't think that's how you want it, is it, pet?”

“No.”

Bakura slapped him on the ass again. "Say master. You like it hard, don't you?” He let Ryou press a finger on the inside of his wrist. 

“Yes, please. Master.”

“Deep,” said Bakura, moving slowly and stroking the back of Ryou's hand. “And like this.” He snapped his hips. Ryou made a strangled sound that Bakura wanted to hear it again immediately. He fucked Ryou hard and fast like an animal while Ryou panted and moaned and stared at the way they looked in the mirror too dark and intense and _hot_.

After it was over Ryou put his hair in a ponytail himself.

“You can go now,” he told Bakura, putting on his shirt.

There was a lot Bakura had to reckon over with Malik, too many more steps before he would have the Rod in his hands and he'd come in here to forget all of that. The past couple months had gone by like a whirlwind and left him dissatisfied.

Before he was gone, he found the nerve to tell Ryou, “You know, I'm only half here these days...”

 

* * *

 

 _I'm the stupid one?,_ Malik shouted, making Bakura's head ache. _You're the one who threw away the match!_

“And you're the one who killed your own father because you wanted a shiny, new motorbike,” said Bakura out loud. He was going through as much food as he could, trying to force Ryou's body to recover.

_You're playing with fire right now._

“Am I? That particular repressed memory is already out of the bag.”

_You've got to help me get rid of him if you still want the Sennen Rod._

“What am I doing?” said Bakura, stuffing his face. “Relax.”

_He's going to kill Rishid, I know he is._

“Well, we can only hope for the best, can't we?”

Malik, ghostly, flushed hot. _Eat faster._

 

* * *

Malik wasn't wrong. His reanimated body was trying to stick a knife into his brother. Bakura supposed he was straying too far from the point – he was no closer to getting the Rod than when he started.

Malik's body moved with dark power. Bakura had double locked Ryou's soul room and he checked the security. The first strike, Malik's psychosis threw him against a wall. The next one, Bakura was prepared for.

“Let's settle this,” he suggested, “in a game only those with Sennen Items can play.”

 

* * *

 

The way Bakura dueled was as crazy and self destructive as always but he lost to the one who sacrificed his entire being to god. As usual, god hated him and would not recognize him as one of his children.

When Bakura woke up in the Puzzle he knew that half of him was burning once again in hell. It seemed like decades had passed since he was holding Ryou by the hip in that haunted room. As long as he was this close to the pharaoh, he might as well straighten out some of the kinks in his strategy. If anything, it was Ryou who had finally managed to teach him some patience.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Ryou saw was Osiris in the night sky. Ever since he learned the constellations as a kid, he'd always picked Osiris the fastest. Wind howled around Ryou and made his shirt billow out. It took a long time for him to will himself to sit up.

His fever felt worse when he did so he counted stars until his head stopped swirling counter to the blimp's swerving. Then, he pushed himself up slowly and tried not to gag.

Ryou had almost made it to his room before he realized he didn't have the Sennen Ring anymore.

His own two feet felt too big as he scrabbled back the way he came. Getting back on the top of the blimp only confirmed what Ryou already knew. There was no glittering gold object at all on the surface of the dueling championships.

The last thing he had said to Bakura? He was absolutely stupid, after all.

Ryou told himself that the Ring always came back that night, the next morning, and everyday for the following week. After that it was hard to believe a farce but Ryou had always had a thing for deception. He unpacked Bakura's Memory World and picked up where he left off.

Yuugi and his friends had stopped talking to Ryou entirely. He wondered if Bakura had always been decent enough at pretending to be him if he was no longer seen as trustworthy but knew, truly, that it was because no one knew what he was really like at all.

Ryou noticed that he had a habit of playing with the spikes of the Ring now that there was nothing there. Without Bakura, his apartment seemed shittier and food pointless. What was the point of forcing yourself to be contained into three meals a day, the life of a normal student, or that of a functional human being when there was no one around who needed his body and identity for any purpose?

The whole point of Bakura was that Ryou could be himself, uninhibited, and the whole point of Ryou had been Bakura.

Ryou started skipping school to work on Memory World, eating only cereal and not drinking enough water. Staying hydrated was tedious when your legs shook from getting thin.

When Ryou finally finished the project, he realized it had taken him years, that he could find no other use for his own two hands anymore, and tried to read his palms in vain. He'd always regarded palmistry as a stupid practice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last week has been crazy! between white people calling me a cunt for blocking people who have proven they are ready to erase me, white people i don't usually talk to suddenly letting me know they can hold me hand with their white protection as i go about my daily life, and "at least this is better than china" kind of reactions, i haven't had the space for my own thoughts.
> 
> i've been very angry and not surprised. i've had too much trouble in workplaces, school, and support networks to not see this coming. there is a race war and the reality is just hitting.
> 
> if you don't live in the us of fucking a and don't care, ignore this and i hoped everyone who read this enjoyed this chapter. there's just one more now!
> 
> ps. i didn't give ryou and bakura a safe word only because i was imagining them being soul connected during that scene, like bakura is able to read ryou's desires and do what he wants him to do, ryou knows bakura is capable of it, and both they know if and when to stop. when the ring doesn't just reappear around ryou's neck like in duelist kingdom, they're both kinda freaked out. the sex is them renegotiating the connection. a trust building exercise!
> 
> pps. sorry if i suck at writing sex, i'm actually asexual. like, i only enjoy fictional sex sometimes and never irl so i have no idea if what i like turns other people on lol.


	7. Chapter Six / Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bakura finally gets what he wants and Ryou learns why it's a bad idea to promise things to ghosts

It was the perfect storm.

Ryou had always given Bakura so much shit for impersonating him he scoffed at himself that night. There was a black trench coat Ryou's father handed down to him which Ryou never wore because it didn't suit him. Bakura had liked the coat, though he never got a chance to wear it. At least, it protected Ryou from the rain even if it made him feel like an impostor.

At Yuugi's house, Ryou stopped in his tracks. Two shapes were crawling down the side of the building. They were wearing bright yellow raincoats as they broke and entered. The duffel bag they dragged between them was too heavy and bulky to hold only the god cards.

Ryou broke into a run and caught them in an alleyway. Stupid, they'd stopped not far from the site of their crime and opened the bag.

“What's this?” one of them said, holding up the Sennen Ring. Ryou was still twenty feet away and ran so hard he fell onto the guy.

It was like Bakura was waiting for him. As soon as Ryou touched the Ring he was in the soul room he didn't know he'd missed sitting on the floor, disoriented.

_Good job, yadonushi._

Before Ryou could think of anything to say Yuugi had run through and was raising a commotion about nothing in particular.

 _This body is weak_ , Bakura accused Ryou when they were alone.

_You left me._

Bakura got them home and forgot which key was for the front door. Inside, Bakura put a kettle of water on the stove. Ryou came to at his kitchen table with a hot mug of tea in front of him.

 _I finished your game_ , Ryou said, trying to make amends. They had tripped over Memory World on their way in.

 _I'm going to die, Ryou_ , said Bakura.

The tea was too hot to sip.

_I'm sure there's a way-_

_You think I want to win_ , Bakura teased Ryou, _when we're competing for death?_ He was excited.

Ryou was staring at the tea. _I finished your game_ , he repeated.

_No one beats the holder of the Sennen Puzzle in a game._

_You knew you were going to break my heart_ , realized Ryou, _from the beginning._

 _You're the only one who wants me to win_ , said Bakura and when that was ignored, _You wanted to help me find eternal rest._

_I was seven years old._

_You thought that would be good for me. You thought death was good for spirits._

Exasperated, Ryou could find no wrong with Bakura. Yuugi's face and anger flashed in his head.

_The pharaoh's not going to kill me, yadonushi. I'm going to kill him._

Ryou stood up, angry. _I'm going to bed._

Bakura kept talking, catching Ryou up to everything he had been festering inside of for the past couple months. _There's things I need you to do._ _After I'm gone, I need you to make sure the Sennen Ring is destroyed with the rest of the Items._

 _I hate you_ , said Ryou.

That night he dreamed he was dragging a mule's carcass across the floor of his old elementary school gym and that the intestines kept falling out through a hole in the back. When Ryou got to the other side, he thought that he was in the Domino City Museum for a second before he woke up in Bakura's soul room. It was empty and the last place Ryou wanted to be.

 _Get me the fuck out of here_ , Ryou said because there was no door. Bakura walked in fifteen minutes later, cocky and sneering. Ryou was waiting for him, grabbed him by the hair, and pulled as hard as he could but Bakura was as fast as a cat and had a hand around his neck before Ryou could blink.

They stared at each other, waiting. Then one of them let go and the other backed off.

 _"_ Yadonushi," Bakura greeted Ryou, nodding.

"You think you're so clever, don't you?"

Bakura's face split, he smiled so big. This just made Ryou angrier.

"You think," Ryou began to shout, "that it's just you against the rest of the world and that there's no one on your team and because of that you're somehow better than everyone else, smarter, stronger,  _something_ , don't you? When in reality, you can't do a single thing by yourself, can you? And you think of everyone around you like they're _toys_ or _tools_ that you can place wherever you want and _use_ when, really, you've got no control over _anything_.

"I wish," hissed Ryou, "that you got burned up with the rest of your folks a long time ago."

Bakura grabbed him and kissed him like wildfire and Ryou sank into it, breathing in the way Bakura and that nasty, little room he had smelled for the last time, before pushing Bakura away.

"Don't talk to me ever again," Ryou said.

Ryou woke up again in his own bed, the morning light crisp on his bedroom wall.

Memory World was gone. All that was left was a forgotten, little figurine of an anonymous Egyptian woman rolled right up to his front door.

 

* * *

The next day, the last thing Ryou wanted to do was follow Yuugi and his friends to the Egyptian exhibit but they had already asked him, thinking it would be good for him since he was sometimes possessed.

That Bakura was halfway still with him made the situation worse. This was a Bakura who thought about nothing but his inevitable end.

When Yuugi fell to his knees saying, “He's gone” in astonishment. Ryou empathized. He'd already felt the same way in Battle City.

When Bobosa told Ryou that he wasn't fit to go with the others he bolted. Ryou knew when he was going to start crying and hated doing it in front of people. He ended up running down a side staircase of the museum, disoriented through tears, and gasping for air.

A guard stopped him. "Are you okay?"

Immediately, Ryou stopped crying. "Yes, I lost something. A contact lens," he said breezily. "I think it was in the Egyptian Wing?"

 

* * *

 

Memory World's leg collapsed and several months of Ryou's labor turned into dust. Bakura was playing to lose. When he was a turn away from the end, Ryou realized it was the last moment he'd ever live sure that the voice in his head was more real than a piece of imagination.

 _Why can't you want something else? Like to find your long lost name or some shit?_ Ryou ended up saying instead of goodbye.

Bakura played his last card. _I'm just a thief, yadonushi. My name isn't worth its weight in gold._

 

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

 

 

In Memory World, Bakura remembered how to feel with his hands again and couldn't stop picking up sand, rocks of different textures, and pricking his fingers on cacti. The sun made him thirsty and he remembered how to ration his water again.

Having a body was heavy. Taking care of it meant work. He'd forgotten that most of what it meant to be human was to thirst, hunger, and need.

As soon as he'd collapsed into that body he'd thought of Ryou.

 

* * *

 

Everyone was elated. It was the epic end to an epic tale and Ryou wasn't a minor character, despite what Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda may have thought.

The hardest part of his day had been to drag himself across the land with Yuugi and his friends. They let him tag along but no one spoke to him.

Stone faced, Ryou carried out Bakura's last wish, thinking about how he would never wake up in his soul room or open his eyes and see an unfamiliar ceiling again, and watched the Sennen Ring disintegrate into the ground, unreachable.

He'd been only seven years old when he promised the spirit that he would help him find rest. At seven, Ryou had been a wickedly smart child misunderstood by all. At seven, he felt a cheap thrill at esoteric missions, that he had a dirty little secret – a voice only he could hear.

Ten years had passed and Ryou was a seventeen year old teen who had a habit of thinking to himself as if he were speaking with another person and checking an empty space on his chest every morning in a panic.

After they landed in Domino City, Ryou walked home from the airport. It took him three hours. When he got home he scrubbed all the pots and pans he owned, the floors with oil soap, washed all his laundry by hand, and wiped every surface he could find down.

Then, he marveled at how empty his living room was for the first time in years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the end! thanks, everyone, who read this fic and got this far <3<3<3 i really love you for taking the time to read this.
> 
> tendershipping is so important to me because it was my first ship 11 years ago! i think about bakura and ryou negotiating a relationship and boundaries while sharing a body and both being kind of fucked up and...swoon? and i'm perpetually and eternally in love with ryou - a character whose whole character is that no one ever gets to know him and, the times you do, you're never sure if it's really bakura. and the only thing really revealed is that he loves mystery! it's such a mind fuck when the main antagonist of a show is a friend of the protagonist who is never revealed completely.
> 
> love y'all, thanks for reading again, and i hope we all keep tendershipping close to our hearts, even a decade later, even if just as a little reminder that no one is really who they seem to be and there are always sides of yourself you don't know, whether you process them as genuine or not <3


End file.
